This a blog to help teachers and student better use the Smartboard technology. Although all subjects will be discussed, the primary focus will be teaching math with technology. Many of the posts will be VIP's or Virtual Instructional Plans that will describe how use the notebook software. Other posts will be videos of student work and models and discussions on how to unleash the power of a Smartboard.

Wednesday, July 23, 2008

I am taking a course for my Masters from Plymouth State. The course is on integrating technology into the classroom. Many of the readings are studies on what methods are effective to use in teaching our children. I was led to a site: www.smarterkids.org and I got to reading some studies that different schools have done in this area. Back in 2001 in Wichita, KS, a school introduced the Smartboard as a way to increase student achievement. The article that I read, focused on first grade learners, can be found at: http://smarterkids.org/research/paper10.asp

It has been encouraging to see our district go in the direction of embracing this web 2.0 generation. While many who are educating grew up with very different or minimal technology, we need to remember our learners and I think that in using the Smartboard effectively, we are speaking the right language.

Monday, July 14, 2008

The teachers in the Concord School District amaze me. They had so many great ideas last week at the SMARTboard workshop.

We were discussing how to keep all kids engaged in the learning when using the SMARTboard.

Several teachers use the morning message as a time to get all kids involved. Teacher's pose a question like, "What month were you born in?" in the morning message they write to the kids. The kids then go up to the SMARTboard and move an icon onto the graph to represent themselves. This works well since it is just on of the many jobs they have to do when they first get into the classroom. The data can then be revisited later with the Kagan cooperative learning structure Mix, Freeze, Group. (This ties responsive classroom, SMARTboard and cooperative learning together.)

Another great idea that Lisa had to involve the SMARTboard was to have the students that did not get into a group to make a new group by adding "virtual students." Watch the video on Mix, Freeze, Group to see how this plays out.

Barbara and Kathy have made many morning message graphs that can be found in the smartboard conference in the discussions area of first class.

This is my first attempt at using video from the video camera. Bear with me until I get better at this. At last weeks workshop we discussed how to keep all our students engaged. One way to do that - smartboard or not - is to use Kagan Cooperative Learning Structures. (To learn more get yourself to a Kagan workshop, if you work for CSD tell Dorinda you want a Kagan workshop.) We have also made a template for the gallery... look in the teacher's resources folder.

This video show us learning Numbered Heads Together. The smartboard version uses the interactive dice to choose the student. Another use of the smartboard would be to have the student defend their answer with a visual or graph.

Notice the teachers sit back after the discussion. This is a sign that all members in the group know the answer (and explanation) and are ready to be called on.

This structure is powerful because:a. it engages all studentsb. it holds all students accountable for the answer to the questionc. is a random way to choose a student to answer a question (or come to the smartboard)

Thursday, July 10, 2008

I have had the honor of working with the most amazing teachers this summer! Back in June teachers at the curriculum institute improved many of the lessons we had started during the year, and many who have never even touched a smartboard jumped in with both feet and did a terrific job. This week at the tech integration institute we tried to connect many of the district initiatives (Smartboard, Everyday Math, Cooperative Learning, and Responsive Classroom).

On Tuesday one of our students was playing the multiplication version of the online game Sum Sense. Several times her answers to the nine facts were very unreasonable. On Wednesday I taught a small group mini lesson with the big idea: When you multiply by nine the product should be a little less than when you multiply the same number by ten. I am happy to say the students seem to get the idea by the time we were done.

Three teachers, Kristen, Mary and SueAnn learned how to make smartboard movies at teh institute and practiced by making this movie of the lesson they watched on Tuesdsay afternoon.